Global concerns regarding the health and welfare of our food, water and air systems are at an all-time high and growing rapidly each year. Radioactivity, mercury, arsenic, lead, bisphenol A, benzene and a range of other toxins are finding their way into our food, water, soil, consumer products and air supplies, the systems that support them, and ultimately our bodies. Furthermore, humans are discovering an increased range of dangerous and/or disruptive allergens such as gluten, mold and others contained in our food, water, soil, consumer products and air supplies, the systems that support them, and ultimately our bodies.
Prior art test systems and/or methods for detecting environmental toxins may have utilized test strips that exhibit color changes when brought in contact with a test sample. An existing diagnostic system uses test strips that exhibit color changes when brought in contact with a test sample. The color changes of the test strips may be by a dedicated apparatus, or a general-purpose reader apparatus. The reader apparatus may have the functionality of obtaining the color information of the test strips.
However, in the prior art, the collected data may not have been always kept, or it may not have been kept in a fashion that allows for ready retrieval and/or analysis for future problems, and/or for environmental trends and/or correlations, and/or for immediate communication to other local or regional devices or testers. Furthermore, these existing devices may be prohibitively expensive for certain applications. For example, the reader apparatus might not be widely affordable in developing countries where mobile diagnostics are needed the most. The testing kits also provide little incentive for users to go out and test various environmental materials and provide information to the wider public, because of the difficulty in obtaining and maintaining accurate results.
Thus, there exists a need for a system which allows users to easily detect and upload test data, and provide the ability track and report test results.